How believers should behave in view of their position in Christ
4
📚I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, appeal to you to walk worthy of 📖 the calling which you received,4:1 In the previous chapters Paul revealed what God has called us to be in Christ – God’s children, God’s inheritance, Christ’s body, God’s temple, Christ’s home. Now Paul exhorts us to live worthy of this calling. We must constantly behave as God’s own special children should behave. We should always keep in view the glorious truth of what we are in Christ and live in the light of it.⚜
2 📚with complete humility and meekness 📖, with patience 📖 bearing with one another in love, 3 📚striving to keep the unity of the Spirit 📖 in the bond of peace. 4 📚There is one body 📖, and one Spirit 📖, just as you are called in one hope 📖 of your calling, 5 📚one Lord 📖, one faith 📖, one baptism 📖, 6 📚one God and Father 📖 of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all 📖.
They should be prepared for service
7 📚But to each one of us grace has been given according to the measure of the gift of Christ. 8 📚Therefore he says,
“When he ascended up on high,
he led captivity captive,
and gave gifts to men”.
9 📚(Now that “he ascended”, what is it but that first he also descended into the lower parts of the earth 📖? 10 📚He that descended is the same also who ascended 📖 up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.) 📖 11 📚And he gave some to be apostles 📖, and some to be prophets 📖, and some to be evangelists 📖, and some to be pastors and teachers 📖,
4:7-11 There are some matters in which all believers are the same (he has just listed seven), but in other matters they differ. This is true concerning their spiritual abilities and work. Paul mentions only the most important ones here.⚜
4:11 Compare 1 Cor 12:28.⚜
12 📚for the perfecting of the saints 📖, for the work of the ministry 📖, for building up 📖 the body of Christ,
4:12 Here is the grand purpose Christ has in giving spiritual gifts to individuals and giving those individuals to the Church. Compare 1 Cor 12:7.⚜
They should grow up spiritually in Christ
13 📚until we all come into the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a complete person, to the measure of the mature state of the fulness of Christ, 14 📚so that we will not be children, tossed this way and that and carried 📖 about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery and cunning craftiness of men in their deceitful plotting, 15 📚but speaking the truth in love, in everything may grow up in him who is the head, that is, Christ.
4:13-15 Growth into spiritual maturity is what God desires for us. Compare 1 Cor 3:1-3; Heb 5:11—6:1; 1 Pet 2:1-3; 2 Pet 3:18. In v 13 this maturity is in unity of faith in Christ and in knowledge of Him. In v 15 it is in all spiritual things. We should grow deeper and deeper into Christ and up to Him until we all together attain His fullness. This is what God plans for His Church as a whole, and He will accomplish it. Individually we are to work with Him by “speaking the truth in love” (v 15).
This is exceedingly important in spiritual growth. If we wish to grow we must learn to speak to one another God’s truth revealed in the Bible, and to tell the truth in all our dealings with one another (v 2,25; Eph 6:14; Ps 15:2; 25:5; 31:5; 51:6; Prov 6:16-17; 12:22; 1 Cor 5:8; Col 3:9; 1 John 2:21). Truth is the ground in which the Church is planted. It is the food it must eat, the air it must breathe. When truth is lost all is lost. We must love the truth and learn to speak the truth out of a heart of love for one another. Of course, this is the exact opposite of the way of many who creep into churches and practice the things God condemns in v 14.⚜
16 📚From him the whole body joined and knit together 📖 by what every ligament supplies, with the effectual working of every part in due measure, causes the body to grow and edify itself in love.
They should reject the old way of life and adopt the new holy way
17 📚This I say, therefore, and solemnly declare in the Lord: henceforth you must not live as other Gentiles live 📖, with their futile thinking 📖. 18 📚Their understanding is darkened 📖, and they are shut out from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them 📖, resulting from the blindness of their heart 📖.
4:18 In four phrases Paul states the condition of people in the world without Christ.⚜
19 📚Being past feeling they have given themselves to unrestrained lust 📖 to commit eagerly every impure act.
4:19 See Eph 2:3. This is the result of blinded, hardened hearts – men lose moral and ethical feeling. Sin no longer seems like sin, and they begin to deny it is sin. The next step is abandoning themselves to sexual immorality, or other evils. Rom 1:24-32 is a true and terrible description of what happens then.⚜
20 📚But you did not learn Christ like that. 21 📚If indeed you have heard him and been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus 📖,
4:20-21 Even some so-called Christians live as those described in v 19. But their style of life contradicts everything they learned about Christ.⚜
22 📚you learned this with regard to your former conduct: put off the old man 📖, which is corrupt according to its deceitful desires, 23 📚be made new in the spirit of your mind,
4:23 Rom 12:2. This will make all the difference in the way we behave.⚜
24 📚and put on 📖 the new man 📖, which is created by God 📖 in righteousness and true holiness.
25 📚Therefore putting away lying, every man must speak the truth with his neighbour, for we are members one of another.
4:25 Verse 15. Truth builds up. Falsehood destroys. When Christians fail here they will be in continual trouble with each other and with the God of truth (Ps 31:5). All lying and deceiving by believers is a sin both against God and against the body of Christ the Church.⚜
26 📚Be angry, and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down while you are angry.
27 📚And do not give place to the devil.
4:27 Falsehood and anger are two ways Christians give opportunity to Satan to create trouble among them. And Satan is always looking for such opportunities (2 Cor 2:11; 1 Pet 5:8).⚜
28 📚He who formerly stole must steal no longer 📖. Instead, he must labour, working with his hands at some good task, so that he may have something to give 📖 to those in need.
29 📚Let no corrupt talk 📖 come out of your mouth, but what is good and useful for edification 📖, that it may minister grace to those who hear it. 30 📚And do not grieve 📖 the holy Spirit of God, by whom you are sealed 📖 until the day of redemption. 31 📚Let all bitterness and rage and anger and uproar and evil speaking be put away from you, together with all malice,
4:31 Other sins which grieve God’s Spirit. We must put them off – reject them as having no right to exist in our lives.⚜
32 📚and be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, just as God, for Christ’s sake, forgave you.
4:25-32 Paul makes clear what he means by the words “put off” and “put on”. Believers must “put off” (quit, reject) everything contrary to truth and holiness and goodness, and “put on” (start practicing) everything in harmony with them.⚜
4:32 Verse 2; Rom 12:10, 17, 19; Col 3:12-13. God has forgiven believers freely and completely. So believers must forgive those who offend them. If they do not they will be in trouble with God Himself. He will act toward them as they act toward others. See Matt 6:12, 14, 15; 18:21-35. If we refuse to forgive those who offend us we injure ourselves, grieve Christ, and cause trouble to the Church.⚜